POS1393-HPR THE INTERVENTION OF AN EXPERT PATIENTS GROUP IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS IN AN INTEGRAL HEALTH MANAGEMENT MODEL
Authors: F. Rodriguez, G. S. Rodríguez-Vargas, N. Pinto-Florez, L. Realpe, P. Rodríguez-Linares, A. Rojas-Villarraga, P. Santos-Moreno
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2023)

<h3>Background</h3> Education for patients is a powerful tool that allows them to participate more efficiently in the relationship with their medical teams and to generate high adherence to their therapy. However, there is a high possibility of establishing lasting relationships between medical teams and patients thanks to the intermediation of expert patients. An expert patient is a person who has received education for the care of their health condition, the improvement of the relationship with their medical team and has been trained to educate, guide and support other patients who have the same health condition. <h3>Objectives</h3> The objective of this study is to implement a participation model that integrates expert patients into healthcare teams so that they can help other patients to learn about the benefits of a correct relationship between doctor and patient and to be more adherent to their treatment, becoming thus in a support axis in the medical care model. <h3>Methods</h3> After the training and certification of 50 expert patients in Rheumatoid Arthritis, a review of the literature was carried out to demonstrate intervention strategies in which expert patients have leadership roles and are integrated into comprehensive medical care models. Then, the patients received training dedicated to: knowledge of the health care model, the algorithm used for the intervention of the interdisciplinary team, the importance of therapeutic adherence in the treatment of a chronic disease, clinimetry and the characterization of patients. to determine a treatment by objectives (Treat to Target Strategy). Finally, expert patients were trained so that they can establish effective communication strategies with other patients in real time. <h3>Results</h3> The intervention will be carried out in groups between 2 and 3 patients and they will be able to interact with other patients in the medical center in a group or individual way. Expert patients will exchange experiences, resolve concerns, conduct literacy, and provide feedback to the medical team and other relevant information (see Figure 1). Likewise, a data collection will be carried out in each interaction to determine through a qualitative study the impact of the support of the expert patients. The duration of each day of intervention will be 6 hours, which denotes a reach of 72 patients per day and an impact on nearly 1,400 patients who come to the medical center per month. <h3>Conclusion</h3> It is important to create strategies that allow the education of patients towards therapeutic adherence and integrate them into healthcare teams, since the inclusion of expert patients in medical care models can generate high impacts on the doctor-patient relationship and improve the degrees of adherence in the population, thanks to the relationship between peers that will lead to a better understanding of the role of patients in their treatment. <h3>REFERENCES:</h3> NIL. <h3>Acknowledgements:</h3> NIL. <h3>Disclosure of Interests</h3> Fernando Rodriguez: None declared, Gabriel-Santiago Rodríguez-Vargas: None declared, NORALMA PINTO-FLOREZ: None declared, Liliana Realpe: None declared, Pedro Rodríguez-Linares: None declared, Adriana Rojas-Villarraga: None declared, Pedro Santos-Moreno Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Abbott, Biopas-UCB, Bristol, Janssen, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Grant/research support from: Abbvie, Abbott, Biopas-UCB, Bristol, Janssen, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi.